U.S. News ranks MIT sixth overall among U.S. universities

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MIT places sixth overall in U.S. News and World Report’s annual rankings of the United States’ best colleges and universities, which were released today. The Institute maintained its long standing as the nation’s top undergraduate engineering program at a doctoral institution, and as the No. 2 undergraduate business program.

MIT shares this year’s overall No. 6 slot with Stanford University. Harvard University and Princeton University occupy the top slot, while Yale University is in third and Columbia University and the University of Chicago are tied for fourth.

Last year MIT tied for fifth place with Stanford, Chicago, the California Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Among individual factors contributing to overall institutional standings, U.S. News ranked MIT first in selectivity, a criterion encompassing undergraduate acceptance rate, number of incoming students in the top decile of their high school class, and standardized test scores; the Institute tied with Caltech, Columbia and Yale on these metrics. MIT also tied for first — with seven other institutions — in the assessment of high school guidance counselors.

The Institute ranked third among national doctoral universities in the percentage of classes with fewer than 20 students (67 percent), tying Johns Hopkins University. Gains in alumni giving — which rose to 67 percent from 63 percent last year — propelled MIT’s ranking on that criterion from No. 12 to a tie for No. 4, with Brown University and Yale, in the new U.S. News analysis.

Other schools in the top five overall for undergraduate engineering programs are Stanford, Caltech, the University of California at Berkeley, and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

In undergraduate business specialties, MIT’s Sloan School of Management ranks first in management information systems, productions/operations management and quantitative analysis/methods. It ranks second in supply-chain management/logistics, fourth in finance and fifth in entrepreneurship.

Penn’s undergraduate business program ranks No. 1 overall, with Berkeley ranked third, the University of Michigan fourth, and New York University and the University of Virginia tied for fifth.